Thanks. I was reading on the site you posted (very interesting btw). However the material there bears out my original assertion that the MP3 format itself is not proprietary. It is by definition "open". (unless I'm now confusing discussions, it's crazy trying to keep track of so many responses...) The problem lies with the legalities of the encoders and to a lesser extent the decoders. -JMS -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Sridhar Dhanapalan Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 9:41 AM To: Jose M. Sanchez; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] mp3 encoder missing??? On Mon, 13 Aug 2001 18:40, Jose M. Sanchez wrote: > Interesting. > > Why would a source distribution be ok, whereas a binary not? It is apparently some sort of legal loophole. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know the specifics on this. > What about CDEX? I had a quick look around the CDEX website (http://www.cdex.n3.net). They are using Lame as their encoder, and they have a binary version available for download. I don't know if what they are doing is legal. Maybe it is not illegal in their part of the world. Most countries _don't_ have any software copyright law, but many accept the US law. > What about WinAmp's plugin which is not Franhoffer based nor has > royalties associated with it? I don't know about this. Perhaps AOL (the owners of Winamp) are subsidising it so they can advertise to Winamp users. > -JMS > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Sridhar > Dhanapalan > Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2001 10:40 PM > To: Jose M. Sanchez; 'Kevin Fonner'; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [newbie] mp3 encoder missing??? > > > The alternatives are only legal through various technicalities. For > example, the BladeEnc encoder is distributed in source form only (just > look at their > web site). Making a binary would violate US patent law. Try looking for > BladeEnc or Lame (the most popular MP3 encoders) on rpmfind.net and see > what > you come up with. It is more difficult to find the latest MP3 encoder > packages (particularly for US distros) than it is to find other normal > packages. -- Sridhar Dhanapalan. "There are two major products that come from Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence." -- Jeremy S. Anderson
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